Although the goal of The High Authority for the Protection of works on the Internet, or HADOPI, is supposed to be to stop piracy, French broadband subscribers found out that the only thing it has managed to stop is low rates for broadband connection. One of country’s largest telecom companies, Free, stated that rate hikes of Internet service providers were “inevitable”.

The residents of France should be prepared to pay more for the Internet connection to visit our site. That’s what Free, one of the biggest broadband providers operating in France, said. Currently the “three-strikes” legislation is blamed for rates hikes. Free cited one package as an example: before HADOPI took effect, subscribers paid $40, but after it became law, the rates went up to $48.

In fact, a central point in rate hikes was explained back in summer 2010, when it was discovered that the new legislation would cost about $64 million annually (those who are interested in recalculating that amount to euros, are always welcomed to use Google tools for that). In addition, that amount was later found to be conservative, assuming that the real costs would be way higher. Broadband providers and the government have been debating over who should pay for the legislation. Although the government agreed to pay for HADOPI, some critics are sure it is doing its best to delay payments, thus forcing the Internet service providers to foot the bill in the end.

The most recent news was that record labels were very upset about the fact that the govt failed to warn all 50 thousand users a day they required. Instead, it is trying to get all the way up to notify up to 10 thousand users daily. The agency defended the actions of the government, arguing that the “three-strikes” law isn’t set to auto-pilot. Today some observers suggest that the agency is only notifying 2 thousand users a day.

All in all, the most ridiculous fact is that now users who have been never involved in pirating content are also being punished for it as well. At the same time, pirates are moving to more secure sources, which means that the only people the law is actually punishing are either non-pirates or pirates who have no idea of what they are doing. In other words, this is just another sign of how wrong the new anti-piracy law really is.